During the school year of 1980-1981, I worked as an IAPC teacher trainer in the state of New Jersey. Within the workshops, the standard IAPC curriculum materials and method were used to train approximately 40 teachers, including a number of administrators as well as a district superintendent. I also worked directly with children in classes ranging from the fourth to the eighth grade. Lipman's novels were the basis for classroom discussion. After reading the novels aloud, students were encouraged (...) to generate topics for further analysis and elaboration. Next, exercises were selected from the teacher's manuals, guiding the examination of problems at greater depth. The goal of the workshops was, primarily, to develop a sense of the value of reflective discussion and to generate a community of inquiry. More specifically, I worked toward the improvement of discussion skills, sensitivity to philosophical issues as they arose in dialogue, and the identification of thinking skills. (shrink)

Philosophy, like the IAPC Mendham seminar itself, is a place apart. I don't mean by this that philosophy is a realm of timeless ideas, or a dream time, or a place of the ancestors where all the seminal ideas are, although it may very well be that; what I mean is that when we do philosophy, everything stops. Everything stops, I think, because if, as we are flowing along in life and language, we encounter a problem, and we don't (...) smooth it over or push it to the side and go on, we discover that it actually represents a question. And if we follow the question to ask itself, it often turns out that: 1) it seems to be a very important question about meaning; 2) it doesn't have an answer, although it may promise one; and 3) it tends to raise even other such questions. (shrink)

We have been conducting IAPC workshops for teachers together since 1982. Most of these workshops have been held in Michigan. However, occasionally we have conducted workshops in other states as well. In fact, our introduction to each other was at a workshop we conducted in another state.

In 1972, Matthew Lipman founded the Institute of Advancement for Philosophy for Children, producing a series of novels and teaching manuals promoting philosophical inquiry at all levels of schooling. The programme consisted of stories about children discussing traditional topics of ethics, values, logic, reality, perception, and politics, as they related to their own daily experiences. Philosophy for Children has been adapted beyond the IAPC texts, but the process remains one of an open community of inquiry in which teachers promote (...) respect, conceptual clarity, critical judgement, and active listening without imposing their own ideas. Philosophy in Schools describes the successes and difficulties in implementing this community of inquiry model. The book covers topics including the formation of non-didactic courses in ethics, the difficulties of fitting a post-compulsory philosophy course into a standard curriculum framework, and the political assumptions of adopting this model in a low socio-economic school. The contributions also ask deeper questions about how a genuine community of inquiry model is incompatible with conventional models of schooling, with their positioning of the discipline of philosophy in the curriculum. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Educational Philosophy and Theory. _. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to highlight significant developments in the history of philosophy in schools in Australia. We commence by looking at the early years when Laurance Splitter visited the Institute for the Advancement for Philosophy for Children (IAPC). Then we offer an account of the events that led to the formation of what is now the Federation of Australasian Philosophy in Schools Associations (FAPSA), the development and production of a diverse range of curriculum and supporting materials for (...) philosophy in schools, the making of the Australasian journal, and more recent events. Our purpose is to create further interest in exploring this complex and rich history. This will achieve a better understanding of the possible future directions for classroom practice and research. (shrink)

In the late 1960s Matthew Lipman and his colleagues at IAPC developed an educational philosophy he called Philosophy for Children. At the heart of Philosophy for Children is the community of Inquiry, with its emphasis on classroom dialogue, in the form of collaborative philosophical inquiry. In this paper we explore the development of educational practice that has grown out of Philosophy for Children in the context of Australia. -/- Australia adapted Lipman’s ideas on the educational value of practicing philosophy (...) with children in order to advance children’s social and intellectual capacities and dispositions. This has subsequently led to its development by both scholars and practitioners in directions that may or may not have been what Lipman had initially intended and to discussions on the nature and educational value of varied approaches that have been implemented in the classroom. To understand fully the effects of these changes requires an understanding of the towering influences that Peirce and especially Dewey were to Lipman. Whilst Lipman developed his own educational philosophy, he freely acknowledged that philosophy for children owes a debt to Peirce for the concept of the community of inquiry and to Dewey for his guidelines on education. -/- We will explore various ways in which the practice of philosophy for children has been implemented and analyse its expansion. This will achieve a better understanding of the possible future directions for classroom practice and research. (shrink)

The nine principles ennumerated below form the core of classroom methodology in any participatory philisophical discussion appropriate to a pre-college setting. They have been taken from the Teacher's Manual of a soon to be available literature based critical thinking and evaluative reasoning text, THE FEILDSTON ETHICS READER, edited by myself and Beatric Banu and published by the Ethical Culture Schools. Although most of these principles are contained either implicitly or explicitly in the manuals for IAPC material and various published (...) books and papers on Philosophy for Children, they have never to my knowledge, been enumerated and presented as conditions necessaryfor philisophical discussions that reflect the centrality of participtory and non-indoctrinating classroom practices and the formation of a Community of Inquiry. Hopefully, thse conditions, presented starkly and without compromise, will furnish a core that defines the essence of a non-didactic and philosophical approach based on the insight of Lipman and others. Such an approach, whether utilizing IAPC materials or other sources more congenial to particular school settings could then serve as a means of distinguishing between programs consistent with the ideals of philosophical thinkingin Lipman's sense and other approaches to critical thinking or reasoning skills development. (shrink)

Over forty years ago, the American philosopher and educationalist began work on what was to become a series of philosophical novels for children. As time went on, he also constructed accompanying teacher resources together with colleagues. The most popular of these works were designed for primary education and constitute what came to be known as the IAPC Curriculum for the younger years. The influence of Lipman has been immense. He taught us that philosophy is not beyond the reach of (...) primary school children when appropriately presented; that the questions of philosophy are germane to all primary school subjects; and that philosophy can be used to encourage thinking across the curriculum. Influential and instructive as these materials have been, however, they do not constitute a curriculum in the sense in which that is generally understood in school education. This paper explores both the strengths and limitations of Lipman’s pioneering effort from the viewpoint of curriculum construction in order to see what lessons can be leaned. (shrink)

In Community of Inquiry with Ann Margaret Sharp: Childhood, Philosophy and Education is the first in a series edited by Maughn Gregory and Megan Laverty, Philosophy for Children Founders, and is a major contribution to the literature on philosophy in schools. It draws attention to an author and practitioner who was largely responsible for the development of scholarship on the community of inquiry, who co-founded the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC), and who undeniably made a (...) significant contribution to philosophy for/with children as a global movement. For anyone familiar with Philosophy for Children, they would, no doubt, also be familiar with its founder Matthew Lipman. However, not always acknowledged is that Ann Margaret Sharp, a philosopher of education, was also one of its pioneers who collaborated with Lipman to develop a theory and practice of the community of inquiry as a collaborative pedagogy and method for Philosophy with Children, as well as a pre-college curriculum. Also, not widely known is that the term ‘community of inquiry’ first appeared in an article co-authored by Lipman and Sharp (1978). Lipman credited Sharp with reconstructing the Peircean/Buchlerian notion of community of inquiry into a model of educational practice. Together they extensively developed the community of inquiry as an approach to teaching, said to transform the structure of the classroom in fundamental ways. Gregory and Laverty set the record straight regarding Sharp’s involvement in the development and success of Philosophy for Children as a school program and worldwide movement. Both editors are highly qualified for a project like this. Between them they have written numerous articles, book chapters and books and have co-edited books on philosophy of education, particularly philosophy for/with children. They are also well-respected practitioners who have collaborated with Sharp. (shrink)